European finance ministers may have thrown a lifeline to Ireland with a significant change to the new rescue fund that is due to come into existence in 2013.

The change will mean that private sector banks who lend to the new fund will no longer be forced into burden-sharing if a recipient of a bailout gets into difficulty. It will be seen as a modicum of success for the Irish government which has struggled to get any concessions in its battle for a renegotiated bailout deal.

This "preferred creditor status" was widely seen as an impediment to a return to the markets for Ireland in 2013 as banks would have been reluctant to start lending again if the terms of the credit facility meant that were not top of the queue for repayment.

Jean Claude Juncker, who chairs the euro finance ministers group, revealed today that the preferred creditor status will no longer apply to the European stability mechanism (ESM), the "permanent crisis fund" which comes into being in mid-2013.

The announcement will be seized upon as a victory by Irish politicians who have been facing increased criticism on the domestic front for failing to get the existing IMF/EU bailout deal renegotiated. However economists are cautious.

Dermot O'Leary a respected economist with Dublin stockbrokers Goodbody said he was "surprised" the preferred creditor status was being lifted and was sceptical that the Germans would agree to it given their demands over recent weeks for an element of burden-sharing in the Greek deal.

Although Angela Merkel said on Friday this was not the government's position, there is many a slip twixt cup and lip and the new terms of the ESM will have to be ratified politically.

"It will probably improve our chances to get back to the markets, but it is by no means certain," said O'Leary.

"It is just one of a list of things that has to happen before we can. It is certainly one less concern for private sector investors, but in the meantime there is still concern about contagion from Greece and the main issue for Ireland is sorting out the banks.

"Personally I think it will be difficult for the Germans to accept and there may be political difficulties elsewhere," he said.

He says the biggest impediment for Ireland's return to the market is the mountain of bank debt which is helping keep the country's debt to GDP at a prohibitively high ratio for normal lending.

Economists including O'Leary Ireland have long predicted that Ireland would be unable to return to the private credit markets in 2013 as required under the EU deal and programme for recovery.